Dollhouse: Grey Hour

By Sonia Aurora

We begin tonight’s show with Echo acting as midwife, the mother to be pushing and screaming that she wants to “forget” (specifically, forget the pain of giving birth). Echo’s wiped, and she and Topher follow the requisite script:

Topher: “Hello Echo. How are you feeling?”
Echo: “Did I fall asleep?”
Topher: “For a little while.”
Echo: “Shall I go now?”
Topher: “If you like.”

A few moments later, Echo, Sierra and Victor all sit at the same table conversing, about each of them trying to be their best, and in trying it makes them their best. (The best part here is Victor speaking perfect English, without the bad Russian accent he sports as Lubov). Topher’s impressed that the 3 have been assembling for lunch every day, not concerned that there might be residual memories, but that it goes deeper to an instinct of flocking together.

DeWitt is speaking to a client about an engagement and gets interrupted with a call by an obvious superior, to whom she explains that, yes, she will take care of Ballard and give him closure (not sure if this means Victor gets sacrificed or not). She’s clearly shaken up and frustrated by the call, and that is her emotional spectrum for the whole episode as things go haywire. She shuffles off the client, assuring him that only he knows the specifics about the engagement, and Echo is now Bambi, it seems; it’s hard to tell at first if she’s a prostitute gift for the guy she’s grinding on in the hotel lobby, as it’s inferred he and his 2 companions are there for his bachelor party. A security guard asks them to bring their party up to their room and a few moments later she is running down the hall and into the security guy, screaming that they hurt her and that she didn’t sign on for whatever it is they tried to do. Security dude brings her to the doldrums of the hotel and tried to buy her off with $10,000 and her signature so that she won’t pursue any legal action against the hotel or the guys (aka, hotel guests). She insulted and turns around and knees the guy, takes him out, and smiles. “Blue skies,” she says (her trademark it seems). Our Echo is really Taffy, and she’s a thief. So are the three guys she came in with, and they are pulling a heist. Taffy is clearly the ringleader, explaining to them about Grey Hour, that time when the security system essentially does a re-boot and in that window of opportunity they will steal what the client is looking for – a piece of the original Parthenon.

Ballard, meanwhile, is at his apartment nursing his gunshot wound with meds when Lubov/Victor comes upon him and asks him for witness protection since they (the Russian baddies he works with) know that he’s been talking to Ballard and are likely kill him. He explains he didn’t know about the ambush from last week, but that it was an anonymous tip he got. Ballard shows him the picture of Echo he’s got, but nothing sparks a latent memory about his Dollhouse lunch mate.

Back at the hotel vault, where they house really good imitations or the actual real pieces of stolen art themselves, the art expert among the group finds what they’re looking for, stabs the computer expert (who looked a lot like John Cusack and therefore will be his name going forward) and runs off. Echo is still all calm and collected, and she calls Langdon to finish the job and that she’ll get them out of there. As they hang up, static ensues, and Echo slowly puts the foot down, that familiar blank stare coming over her face and she asks, “Did I fall asleep?”

Oh crap.

Back at the Dollhouse, while an Asian Punky Science Gal is being lectured by the “Boy-God of All Things Neural” (aka, Topher) she points out something is Very Wrong with Echo’s vitals. Echo – now as Echo – is cradling and rocking herself like a trauma victim repeatedly following script, asking “Shall I go now? Shall I go now?” 2nd in command Toughie is trying to ease her down while John Cusack is bleeding and convinced its over. Langdon meanwhile faces down the art thief, gets the item and holes him up in the van, and Topher hears a playback of the phone call and recognizes that the frequency was a remote wipe; he clarifies that he didn’t say this wasn’t possible, but had not been tested successfully.

Someone not only hacked in, but knew exactly how and who to hack into. Echo’s in danger of major sensory overload, because she’s like a baby being born, all “florescent lights and forceps.”

They imprint Sierra as Taffy and she spews the same lectures Echo did at the beginning about not second guessing the client and wearing comfortable shoes (confusing to me since they both wear stiletto thigh high boots – they are NOT comfortable). The “talking cucumber” (aka Echo) is dealing with Toughie deciding they are going to shoot their way out, but not before a mildly tender exchange between Echo and John Cusack about how a Picasso-esque painting looks broken and she’s adamant that she’s not broken; he argues that art allows you to see your true self. He’s also planning to suicide himself by some drug injection, but Toughie won’t allow it. Sierra finally gets a hold of Echo on her cell and tries to talk her through getting through the door, but Echo triggers the alarm and they are trapped. Sierra gets wiped (the usual way) and Echo might need to be neutralized by Langdon while this goes down. Toughie tells Echo she has to start shooting or he’ll shoot her, but instead she sticks him in the neck with the suicide syringe, bringing about a back and forth gunfire between Toughie and the security swat team. John Cusack throws a smoke bomb and tells her she can save herself, but by the time Langdon meets up with her she’s dragging John Cusack with her and telling Langdon she’s not broken.

Lubov/Victor meanwhile, who has been waiting on Ballard’s return to get him into witness protection, instead gets told that Ballard basically put out an APB in case he tries to leave the area. Great, so Lubov is a sitting duck while he’s Russian and not a Doll. It’s a pretty douche-y thing to do on Ballard’s part, and again I’m annoyed to not know what his f-ing motivation for this mission is.

Echo gets wiped of what happened post remote wipe and she and Topher follow script again and the client gets what they wanted (as well as the bonus of the betraying art expert). Topher assures DeWitt that the remote wipe didn’t do any permanent damage and Topher prattles on about how Alpha is the only one who could have done it, how could they have lied to him about being dead and DeWitt ups his security clearance so that they can work together in bringing Alpha down to at least not doing remote wipes again. Echo stares at a steamed mirror and does an outline, I suppose distorted like the Picasso (but it’s hard to tell in steam lines) and then she wipes it clean to reveal her complete but confused face.

Good, but frustrating episode. I’m confused by what Alpha is trying to achieve with Echo – it’s obvious he’s targeted her, but is it because he thinks she’s special or because he wants to kill her extra-cleverly? Granted, the wrenches he’s thrown in Echo’s cogs she’s been able to escape from virtually un-phased, but I’m starting to think that he wants her sadistically all-dead instead of trying to prove the point that she’s more than just any old Active. I sort of liked seeing DeWitt stressed as she was (though surprised she sipped from whatever liquor she was drinking – in her position I would’ve downed it and chased it with another of the same, bartender). Her British steely façade is failing, and I want to see what it forces her to do. There was just enough Topher ,but not enough Langdon this time around, and Dominic was in just enough to leave his smarmy mark. Sierra was also fun in that she and Echo were imprinted with the same bad-ass cat burglar persona, and while Sierra didn’t ooze the same dirty-sexy charm Echo did, it was just an interesting inter-changeability that one Active could just as easily be another. The world of the show is shaping, letting us in on what the Dollhouse has been capable of and the umbrella of paranoia it lives under. As we delve deeper we learn new things as the characters do but also get insights into what they already know. For a show that has such intricacies, it is still unfolding steadily and nicely.

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About Sonia Aurora: Aspiring screenwriter and seamstress, Sonia’s dream is to write life-changing films while product-placing her own line of handbags. In 1999, she wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the short film Dr. Lovestrange, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug, a satirical homage to Stanley Kubrick set amidst the panic of Y2K (Featured on ifilm.com & Coming Soon to YouTube!). While Sonia waits patiently for the Studios to call, she continues her selfless, humanitarian efforts (think Mother Teresa) through her scripts, short stories and sewing (a true triple-threat!), knowing all the while that someday her efforts will indeed save (or at least mildly tweak) the world. She still struggles with which picture to kiss before bedtime: her boyfriend’s or Bruce Campbell’s. And, in the interest of time, she’d like to start thanking the Academy now.

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